1. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of sporting goods equipment, and more particularly golf putters. The game of golf is very old and a wide variety of clubs have been designed and used, many of which have been patented. I am a gold pro and thus, am exceedingly familiar with the wide variety of putters on the market today as well as most of the putters used in the past. I believe the putter disclosed is new as compared to past and present putters.
Putting is a skill that takes many hours of practice, and often many years of golfing, to master. A golfer, in order to be a good putter, must have many different skills. The golfer must be able to "read the green", that is be able to determine the "break" in the green and the "speed" of the green, in order to determine the direction in which he will putt the ball and the strength of the stroke which he will apply to the ball. Even if the golfer is able to correctly read the green, the golfer will often miss a putt because the stroke he applies to the ball somehow varies from his "reading" of the green. The putter disclosed herein will help to maximize the probabilities that the golfer's stroke will correspond to the way in which the golfer read the green.
The putter is designed so that the shaft of the putter is completely behind the center of gravity of the putter's head. Previous putter designs had the shaft entering the putter head either at or in front of the center of gravity of the putter head. These previous designs often led to the golfer either driving the ball into the green during his putt, or "driving the putter head" into the green before striking the ball. All of these putter designs required a golfer, in order to "keep his eye on the ball", to direct his eyes to a position directly between his feet. This reduced the golfer's ability to see both the ball and the intended line of travel of the ball at the same time. Additionally, prior designs required the golfer to impart a starting force on the club in order to start his backswing. Driving the ball into the green, driving the putter into the green, not being able to visualize the line of travel, and a "hitch in the backswing" often lead to missed putts. The design of the putter disclosed herein has the shaft located well behind the striking surface and the center of gravity of the head and helps to minimize these problems.
My putter allows the golfer to keep the putter head lower without contacting the head with the green before contacting the ball. As a result, when the golfer follows through after striking the ball, the putter imparts an increased top spin on the ball which gives the ball a truer roll than the prior putters. Prior putters tried to alleviate the problem of driving the ball into the green by putting an angle on the face of the putter. The design disclosed in this application also incorporates this angle feature to minimize the probability of driving the ball into the green. Also the design of the putter helps to aid the golfer in starting his backswing. The center of gravity of the club, when the shaft is held vertically to address the ball is in front of the shaft. The club head acts like a displaced weight on a pendulum and, therefore, helps the golfer to start his backswing without the need of the golfer imparting force on the club to start the swing. This reduces the possibility of the golfer having a "hitch" in his backswing.
A further benefit of the design of my club is that when the shaft is held in a vertical plane in order to address the ball, the ball is not directly between the player's feet but rather closer to the front foot than the back foot. Thus, a player must turn his head slightly toward the direction fo the hole to see the ball. The slight turn greatly increases the amount of green within the player's peripheral vision, and therefore allows the player to both on the ball and keep his eye on the line of intended travel at the same time. Thus, it can be sen that the club helps to alleviate many of the problems inherent in previous putters.